How to Eat on Points in Any City: The Mechanics, Not a Restaurant List

We can only review restaurants we've eaten at, so this isn't a list. It's the part that's true in every city: how a meal earns points, how a card's dining credits actually get used away from home, and the two ways a vacation dinner quietly earns you nothing.

1. The merchant code decides the earn, not the menu

A card's "restaurant" bonus pays on transactions the card network classifies as restaurants. That classification belongs to the merchant, not to you. Three cases that bite on trips:

• Resort dining billed to the room. The charge posts from the hotel, as lodging. Our Son'z dinner earned the hotel rate on the folio, not 4X. Ask for the check at the table.
• Food inside another business — a stadium, a museum, a hotel bar — often posts as the parent, not as a restaurant.
• Delivery and takeout are included by some issuers and excluded by others. Chase's Sapphire pages say "including takeout and eligible delivery services"; check the card page for yours.

Every card's exact restaurant wording, as published, is on the cards page.

2. Dining credits are geographic

Several cards carry credits that only work on specific platforms — Resy, OpenTable's Exclusive Tables, a delivery app, a coffee chain. Away from home, the question is whether this city's restaurants are on that platform.

Before a trip, open the platform and search the destination. If the city's on it, book the credit-eligible meal first and let it anchor a night. If it isn't, the credit stays home — value it accordingly.

3. Book the occasion dinner before you land

Every city has one restaurant that closes early, fills first, or both. In Kapalua it was Merriman's — 8 PM close, and we never found the night. The mechanics are the same everywhere: the best-value use of a reservation platform isn't the credit, it's the table.

4. The floor follows you

Whatever you earn at dinner is worth its floor until you do the transfer — 4X is 4% or 8%, and the difference is one award search. Abroad, add the foreign-transaction fee to the math: several cards on file charge none; a few charge 2.7% per transaction, which erases a 3% dining bonus on the spot. The fee is on each card page, as the issuer states it.

Where the actual restaurants are

Only where we've eaten. Kāʻanapali, Maui is the first city; the next trip's receipts become the next page. The rule that makes this site slow to grow is the same rule that makes it worth reading.

The same merchant-code logic applies at the box office: earning points on concerts and events.